Now out of Attorney General running, will Matt Gaetz be sworn in for another House term?

Former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz pulled himself out of the running for Attorney General. But can he return to the U.S. House?

The Fort Walton Beach Republican quickly resigned his seat in Congress after President-elect Donald Trump initially nominated him to be the nation’s top cop.  A resignation letter read into the congressional record on Nov. 14 suggested that Gaetz, at that point, had no intention of coming back.

“I hereby resign as a United States Representative for Florida’s 1st Congressional District effective immediately,” his resignation letter reads, “and I do not intend to take the oath of office for the same office in the 119th Congress to pursue the position of Attorney General in the Trump administration.”

But is that still his intention now that such a pursuit has ceased? While Gaetz doesn’t hold office now and his official House website is down, the language of his letter doesn’t appear binding with regard to his next term.

Gov. Ron DeSantis had asked the Florida Secretary of State’s Office to expedite Special Elections to replace both Gaetz and U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz, the St. Augustine Republican tapped by Trump for National Security Adviser.

But to date, no elections have been called. Waltz notably has yet to resign his seat.

Florida Politics asked the Governor’s Office if it still expects Gaetz to vacate his seat next Congress. “You’d have to ask Gaetz,” said DeSantis Press Secretary Jeremy Redfern.

That appears to leave the question to Gaetz himself.

“Since the new Congress hasn’t been been constituted, I think the ball’s in his court,” said state Rep. Alex Andrade, a Pensacola Republican and Gaetz ally.

While several candidates have already announced their intention to run for Gaetz’s seat, that may not matter if a Special Election is never called.

Some candidates already said they will be happy to step aside if Gaetz decides to serve.

“Matt Gaetz is still a Congressman-elect for the 119th Congress,” posted Keith Gross, a Republican who already opened an account to run. “I, and most of us here in the Panhandle, would be thrilled if he opted to take the oath and continue bringing the fire to the establishment in DC. Matt Gaetz has my full support in whatever his next move is.”

Officials at the U.S. House Administration Office say the roll for the 119th Congress will include every candidate certified as the winner of a congressional race by their respective state.

Gaetz did not immediately respond to questions whether he intends now to be sworn into the next Congress in January. But he easily won election to a fifth term in November over Democrat Gay Valimont.

For her part, Valimont still wonders if Gaetz will pursue another position. She and several Democrats opined that DeSantis may appoint Gaetz to a U.S. Senate seat that will presumably be vacated once U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio gets confirmed as Trump’s Secretary of State.

But the other complication that sources on both sides of the aisle pointed to was whether the Attorney General nomination truly prompted Gaetz’s resignation from the House. The U.S. House Ethics Committee reportedly was preparing to release a report into allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use, but has withheld the report since Gaetz resigned his seat.

“None of this is surprising,” Valimont said. “He was never a viable candidate for AG. It was always a way to stop the ethics report and make a spectacle.”

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said it would be inappropriate to release a report on a former Representative. “I think that would be a terrible precedent to set,” he told press.

Should Gaetz return to Congress in January, that obstacle to the report’s publication would disappear.

Gaetz notably has denied any wrongdoing. Federal prosecutors earlier this year ended an investigation into accusations the Congressman trafficked a minor across state lines for sex, ultimately declining to pursue any criminal charges against the lawmaker. The allegations stem from an investigation of former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg, and allies of Gaetz have called Greenberg’s credibility into question as a source of the accusations.

Whether Gaetz wants to weather the embarrassment of the report’s release may be the biggest determining factor if he takes office on Jan. 3.